What we do

The Recovery Program is designed to meet the Endangered Species Act's goal of conserving threatened and endangered species within the ecosystems upon which they depend. This requires a concerted effort to reverse the species' decline by removing or adequately reducing threats to its continued existence. Once the species' long-term survival in the wild is secured, the protections of the ESA are no longer required. … Read more about what we do.

Under section 4 of the ESA, we are accountable to Congress and the public for keeping track of recovery progress and expenditures for each listed species. We do this through our Environmental Conservation Online System (ECOS), which allows us to enter status, recovery implementation, and expenditures information for each species on an annual basis. Reports are generated from this information, including a biennial Report to Congress and an annual Expenditures Report. In addition, we provide access to a variety of species and recovery implementation information through ECOS and the Recovery Online Activity Reporting (ROAR) database.

Five-Year Reviews

Under section 4 of the ESA, the status of each threatened and endangered species must be reviewed at least once every five years to determine if the species is still appropriately classified. The Northeast Region is responsible for conducting 5-year reviews for our 45 lead species.